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In 1907, Diego Rivera decided to travel to Europe,
and thanks to a scholarship he got in Mexico, he was able to travel first to Spain
and later to several cities in Europe, until he finally set up in Paris, in Montparnasse.
In 1911 he started a relationship with many other artists,
not only Latin American, but also European, who lived in that part of Paris; he also started to know about the artistic
movements that existed in that time and that artists were working with.
Just a few people know that Diego Rivera painted artworks in the
cubist style. His production was really large, with more than 200 cubist paintings.
He knew all the phases or stages from that artistic movement
and also got acquainted to the most important artists from that time. In fact, he was really close to artists,
such as Juan Gris or Pablo Picasso. In this case, we have
many artworks done in the cubist style, on its different stages, as the protocubism, the analytical
and the synthetical cubism, and this painting, "Young Man with a Fountain Pen", an oil on
canvas that he painted in 1914, belongs to that stage of cubism.
Diego painted another painter, Adolfo Best Maugard,
who is seated at a table or a desk, like he is working. His hands are
busy, holding a fountain pen, that gives the name to this painting, and he is holding some
sheets of paper, also worked in this cubist style. He is portraited in
several angles. We see him posing facing the viewer, from a profile, from a 3/4 profile,
and we even see a movement in his head and his hand, that is reflected
on each and every one of the strokes that Diego Rivera has painted.
In the case of "Young Man with a Fountain Pen", Diego Rivera used sand,
which are not really fine but rough, because we can see the texture in several
areas of the painting. Those who see the painting through the details,
will find that there are areas where he has painted,
not only forms or geometric figures, but the texture is also useful to
represent, for example, a wall that is behind the man or each one of the
elements that allow us to identify the face, the head or the clothing he is wearing.